If you like your health insurance, you can keep it your insurance. Period

tulip5 · Oct 31, 2013

Not so much, bankruptcy due to medical bills is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US. If everyone's insurance was working that well then few if any of these bankruptcies should have occurred to people with health insurance. In reality, about THREE QUARTERS of those bankruptcies occurred with who had health insurance. Part of what the ACA did was to make many more people responsible for their own health risks, which wasn't working without placing some minimum requirements on what could be called "insurance".

Let's talk about that. I suppose I could in fact go bankrupt if an extended severe, devastating illness happens. (Which is one reason we homesteaded our house.) What you have now under O'care is people realizing they are priced out of insurance all together. This system requires the younger, healthier people (you know, the ones who are waiting tables after getting a Master's degree in something and are carrying $100K of non-dischargeable debt, who will never be able to qualify for a mortgage and are living with their parents... those young invincibles) to sign up for the program. What they are finding out is that they flat out don't have the money.

Check it out... just a homely illustration... none of these under-employed 30 somethings are running out to buy a new car. They don't have $300/month for a payment. So, really... how many of them are going to volunteer to pay $480-$650/month for a product they don't want and will likely not use.

So... yes, if I'm sick enough for long enough... I might go broke even though I'm insured. But O'care wipes millions of people out when they try to pay their first premiums.

Which is a better system?

MunoRN, RN · Nov 1, 2013

This is not a free market.

It actually is. It's not as free as it could be, it would be even more free if Insurers could sell people a plan and then just drop them if they ever do get sick, although you seem to agree that would be worse.

Your complaints are due to the free-market whims of a privatized insurance industry, it's not the limiting their ability to screw us that's the problem.

ArrowRN, BSN, RN · Nov 1, 2013

Um... where are all those valiant defenders of ObamaCare that were here a year ago? Totally flaming anyone who dared to have any doubts about how Democrat promises square with reality.
Debacle.
Train wreck.
Disaster.
Total fail.
Incomprehensible.
Illogical.
Impossible.
Unrealistic.
Just some of the adjectives applied to the roll out by radical Tea Party news outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times, CBS and NBC.

Cancelling policies has nothing to do with Obama. It's the insurance companies you should be blaming. Those fools have been talking peoples money for years paying for what they want, stopping payments on things they refuse to pay for. Insurance companies simply did not want to amend their existing policies to the new health care law because competition is going to increase. Therefore they rather cancel policies and write new ones that contain the provisions of the new law.All they trying to hold people hostage and shutdown the country and then calling the healthcare website a failure because MORE people than expected actually WANT OBAMACARE. Fight all you want...Obamacare is going to happen....Thank God! :yes:

MunoRN, RN · Nov 1, 2013

Let's talk about that. I suppose I could in fact go bankrupt if an extended severe, devastating illness happens. (Which is one reason we homesteaded our house.) What you have now under O'care is people realizing they are priced out of insurance all together. This system requires the younger, healthier people (you know, the ones who are waiting tables after getting a Master's degree in something and are carrying $100K of non-dischargeable debt, who will never be able to qualify for a mortgage and are living with their parents... those young invincibles) to sign up for the program. What they are finding out is that they flat out don't have the money.

If they don't "have the money" they'll get a subsidy, and would likely pay far less then they would have paid before for a plan that would cover them just as well.

Check it out... just a homely illustration... none of these under-employed 30 somethings are running out to buy a new car. They don't have $300/month for a payment. So, really... how many of them are going to volunteer to pay $480-$650/month for a product they don't want and will likely not use.

Other than elective admissions, Hospitalized patients typically didn't know ahead of time that they would be needing insurance, so I'm not sure how it is they know they won't use it.

If an individual is paying that much then they didn't qualify for the subsidy, which would mean they make more than about $50,000/year.

So... yes, if I'm sick enough for long enough... I might go broke even though I'm insured. But O'care wipes millions of people out when they try to pay their first premiums.
Which is a better system?

allnurses Guide · Nov 1, 2013

Find out for your state and county: https://www.healthcare.gov/find-premium-estimates/#3/&aud=indv&type=med

MunoRN, RN · Nov 1, 2013

Overall, we're not really putting more into healthcare than we were before, we just limiting someone's ability to get something without paying for it. Before, you could buy a $50/month plan that wouldn't cover you if racked up big bills, which left the rest of us to pay their bills. With the ACA, people who are able to cover their own financial risks are now required to, which means the rest of us who've been picking up the bill won't have to. This is why some people's costs will go up and some will go down. I can understand how someone who was unfairly shifting their financial responsibilities to others wouldn't like the ACA, I'm just not sure why I should care. Car thiefs don't like that they get arrested for stealing cars either, does that mean we should make stealing cars legal?

OCNRN63, RN · Nov 1, 2013

Not so much, bankruptcy due to medical bills is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US. If everyone's insurance was working that well then few if any of these bankruptcies should have occurred to people with health insurance. In reality, about THREE QUARTERS of those bankruptcies occurred with who had health insurance. Part of what the ACA did was to make many more people responsible for their own health risks, which wasn't working without placing some minimum requirements on what could be called "insurance".
Let's talk about that. I suppose I could in fact go bankrupt if an extended severe, devastating illness happens. (Which is one reason we homesteaded our house.) What you have now under O'care is people realizing they are priced out of insurance all together. This system requires the younger, healthier people (you know, the ones who are waiting tables after getting a Master's degree in something and are carrying $100K of non-dischargeable debt, who will never be able to qualify for a mortgage and are living with their parents... those young invincibles) to sign up for the program. What they are finding out is that they flat out don't have the money.
Check it out... just a homely illustration... none of these under-employed 30 somethings are running out to buy a new car. They don't have $300/month for a payment. So, really... how many of them are going to volunteer to pay $480-$650/month for a product they don't want and will likely not use.
So... yes, if I'm sick enough for long enough... I might go broke even though I'm insured. But O'care wipes millions of people out when they try to pay their first premiums.
Which is a better system?

You don't have to have a catastrophic illness to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt. It happened to me years ago when I didn't have insurance. I am just now--nearly a decade later--seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In the meantime, that debt tanked my credit rating.

If for no other reason, the ACA is an improvement since it means that people with pre-x's won't find it impossible to be insured.

Ginger's Mom, MSN, RN · Nov 1, 2013

if you believe big government can make better decisions then you (or the American publlic)this is the plan. I think Mr Obama has been pretty clear about government does a better job then the citizens. The people voted for the President twice, but what they heard, lower costs, better plans, while you can everything the same only better.

The president did not have confidence in Americans to build a web site and choose a company who Canadian Officals have uses with, but the credential of this company was that they were friends of the Obama's (I thought this president was going to be transparent and fair, and not the usuall politics) . Hard to have confidence in a system that could not manage to put up a web site with complexity of kayak or amazon ( I am choosing the examples the President used) at much more inflated cost.

MunoRN, RN · Nov 1, 2013

So if we repeal Obamacare (which I'm all for) what is that people opposed with Obamacare think we'll end up with instead?

SC_RNDude · Nov 1, 2013

I agree we were all lied to. For instance, I was told that a public option/single payer wasn't better because the free-market could provide whatever product was required at the best price and best service. It appears many of those people are realizing that isn't the case.

The government telling insurance companies what they have to sell, and telling consumers they have to buy one of those products, is not a free market.

MunoRN, RN · Nov 1, 2013

The government telling insurance companies what they have to sell, and telling consumers they have to buy one of those products, is not a free market.

I agree that the government shouldn't be requiring people to buy products, it should be like everything else the government requires us to buy; tax people and buy products on their behalf.

All free market systems are governed and regulated, which includes telling them what they have to sell. There are a few free market systems that are truly "free", mainly in equatorial Africa and parts of South America, although any "free market" system that necessitates UN human rights interventions may not be the best model for us.

Ideally, a society takes the free market drive to get rich at everyone else's expense and put's it to good use, it 'tweaks' that drive and creates a situation where those who do the best for society and themselves, make the most money. Otherwise you just have a bunch of insurance companies taking people's money without feeling any reason to then pay out claims, which clearly isn't in our best interests.

The_Optimist · Nov 1, 2013

I think the Affordable Care Act, was well intentioned but badly carried out. But as with all things new, the quirks only show up after implementation.Hopefully, things get evened out or completely scratched and back to drawing board. There's never anything wrong with admitting a mistake and trying again.